The effects of basal ganglia stroke on implicit learning / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objectives To gain a deeper understanding of the role of the basal ganglia in implicit learning by examining Weather Prediction Category Learning Task among patients with basal ganglia stroke.Methods Seventeen patients with basal ganglia stroke including eight cases of left basal ganglia lesions and nine cases of right basal ganglia lesions.Ten cases without brain damage were used as contr0l.All of the subjects were tested by use of Weather Prediction Category Learning Task(WPCLT) and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)in 3 consecutive days.Results The patients with right basal ganglia lesions were consistently impaired compared with the controls((52.72±5.57)%vs(61.85±8.49)%,F=3.55,P=0.048);(55.83±4.52)%vs(71.85±10.89)%,F=7.74,P=0.003);(62.33±7.70)%vs(80.15±6.67)%,F=10.96,P=0.001)),and the patients with right basal ganglia lesions were impaired in the last day(F=10.96,P=0.009).But in patients of left and right basal ganglia lesions,the learning potential of WPCLT decreased significantly compared with the control(P<0.01).In the control group,the WPCLT total number of correct and WCST Number of Categories Completed were hishly related in the second day.The WPCLT total number of correct correlated significantly with Percent Errors and Number of Categories Completed of WCST in the third day.Conclusion The basal ganglia lesions may decrease implicit learning,and the bottom-up(implicit-to-explicit)learning pattern is impaired in patients with basal ganglia lesions.